The Hittite

10

Odysseos and the other nobles headed for Agamemnon’s cabin for a council of war. I went back to my tent and tried to sleep. Tomorrow we would begin to build the siege towers. We will put an end to this war. We will cross Troy’s high walls and destroy the city. I knew the fire and blood that awaited the Trojans. Battle is hard and bloody. Sacking a city is dirty and murderous. The men will run wild. Looting and raping are their rewards for winning, for surviving long enough to win. I remembered Hattusas in flames and agony. And other cities that we proud Hatti soldiers had taken and looted.

I thought of my wife and sons. They’ll be safe enough here in camp. The troops will all be in the city, burning, raping, slaughtering in a frenzy of release.

And Helen will be in the temple of Aphrodite, waiting for the fate that will overtake her.

I didn’t sleep well that night.

The camp’s roosters raised their raucous cry of morning. I went to the latrine trench, then washed and shared a bowl of lentil soup with my men. Poletes was jabbering away. He had learned that the Trojans had sent a delegation to ask for the return of Hector’s dismembered body. Try as they might to keep the news of Achilles’ death a secret, the Achaians were unable to keep the Trojan emissaries from finding out the news. The whole camp was buzzing with it, although none but Odysseos and a few other nobles knew that Achilles had committed suicide.

Agamemnon’s council met with the Trojan delegation, and after some gruff negotiating agreed to return Hector’s body. The Trojans suggested a three-day truce so that both sides could properly honor their slain and Agamemnon’s council swiftly agreed.

We used the three days of truce to build the first siege tower. My men and I camped among the trees on the far side of the Scamander River, screened from Trojan eyes by the riverbank’s line of greenery. Odysseos, who above all the Achaians appreciated the value of scouting and intelligence-gathering, spread a number of his best men along the riverbank to prevent any stray Trojan woodcutters from getting near us. The wind usually blew past the city and farther inland, but occasionally it changed briefly and I feared that the Trojans could hear our hewing and hammering and sawing. I hoped they would take it as a shipbuilding chore and nothing more.

We commandeered dozens of slaves and thetes to do the dogwork of chopping down the trees and hauling loads of timber. My men commanded work crews with stern efficiency, but even so, by the end of the third day we had only one tower ready for use.

Odysseos, Agamemnon and the other leaders came across the river that evening to inspect our work. We had built the tower horizontally, of course, laying it along the ground, partly because it was easier to do it that way but mainly to keep it hidden behind the still-standing trees. Once it got dark enough, I had several dozens slaves and thetes haul on ropes to pull it up to its true vertical position.

Agamemnon scowled at it. “It’s not as tall as the city walls,” he complained.

Odysseos shot me a questioning glance.

“This first one is tall enough, my lord king,” I said, “to top the western wall. That is the weakest point in the Trojan defenses. Even the Trojans admit that that section of their walls was not built by Apollo and Poseidon.”

Nestor bobbed his white beard. “A wise choice, young man. Never defy the gods, it will only bring grief to you. Even if you seem to succeed at first the gods will soon bring you low because of your hubris. Look at poor Achilles, so full of pride. Yet a lowly arrow has been his downfall.”

As soon as Nestor took a breath I rushed to continue, “I have been inside the city, my lords. I know its layout. The west wall is on the highest side of the bluff. Once we get past that wall we will be on high ground inside the city, close to the palace and the temples.”

Odysseos agreed. To Agamemnon he said, “I, too, have served as an emissary, if you recall, and I have studied the city’s streets and buildings carefully. The Hittite speaks truly. If we broke through the Scaean Gate we would still have to fight through the city’s streets, uphill every step of the way. Breaking in over the west wall is better.”

“Can we get this thing up the bluff to the wall there?” Agamemnon asked.

I replied, “The slope is not as steep at the west wall as it is to the north and east, my lord. The southern side is easiest, but that’s where the Scaean and Dardanian Gates are located. It’s the most heavily defended, with the highest walls and tall watchtowers alongside each gate.”

“I know that!” Agamemnon snapped. He poked around the wooden framework, obviously suspicious of what to him was a new idea.

Before he could ask, I explained, “It would be best to roll it across the plain at night, after the moon goes down. On a night when the fog comes in from the sea. We can float it across the river on the raft we’ve built and roll it across the plain on its back so that the mist will conceal us from any Trojan watchmen on the walls. Then we raise it—”

Agamemnon cut me off with a peevish wave of his hand. “Odysseos, are you willing to lead this … this maneuver?”

“I am, son of Atreos. I plan to be the first man to step onto the battlements of Troy.”

“Very well then,” said the High King. “I don’t think this will work. But if you’re prepared to try it, then try it. I’ll have the rest of the army ready to attack at first light.”

“To night?” I blurted.

“To night,” Agamemnon said, glaring at me.

“But my lord, one tower isn’t enough. We should have four, perhaps six, so we can attack the walls at different points.”

“You have one,” said Agamemnon. “If it works, all to the good. If it fails, so be it. The gods will decide.”

With that, he turned and strode away.

We got no sleep that night. I doubt that any of us could have slept even if we had tried. Nestor organized a blessing for the tower. A pair of aged priests sacrificed a dozen rams and goats, slitting their throats with ancient stone knives as they lay bound and bleating on the ground, then painting their blood on the wooden framework.

Poletes fretted that they offered no bulls or human captives to sacrifice.

“Agamemnon doesn’t think enough of your tower to waste such wealth upon it,” he told me in the dark shadows. “When he started out for Troy and the winds blew the wrong way for sailing for weeks at a time, he sacrificed a hundred horses and dozens of virgins. Including his own daughter.”

“His daughter?” That stunned me.

Nodding grimly, Poletes said, “He wants Troy. The High King will stop at nothing to get what he wants.”

I had seen massive sacrifices at Hattusas and elsewhere. Human captives were often put on the altar. But his own daughter! It made me realize how ruthless the High King really was.

Fortune was with us that night. A cold fog seeped in from the sea. We rafted the tower across the river, crouched in the chilling mist with the tower’s framework looming above us like the skeleton of some giant beast. The moon disappeared behind the black humps of the islands and the night become as dark as it would ever be.

I had hoped for cloud cover, but the stars were watching us as we slowly, painfully, pulled the tower on big wooden wheels across the plain of Ilios and up the slope that fronted Troy’s western wall. Slaves and thetes strained at the ropes while others slathered animal grease on the wheels and axles to keep them from squeaking.

Poletes crept along beside me, silent for once. I strained my eyes for a sight of Trojan sentries up on the battlements, but the fog kept me from seeing much. Straight overhead I could make out the patterns of the stars: the Bears and the Hunter, facing the V -shaped horns of the Bull. The Pleiades gleamed like a cluster of seven blue gems in the Bull’s neck.

The night was eerily quiet. Perhaps the Trojans, trusting in the truce the Achaians had agreed to, thought